


The Blood of Wolves

by trashwriter



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: A Companion to Wolves Fusion, Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Alternate Universe - Werecreatures, Bisexual Female Character, Canon-Typical Dub Con, Canon-Typical Violence, Cunnilingus, Exhibitionism, F/F, F/M, Female Bran, Female Characters, Female Jon Snow, Female Protagonist, Female Rickon, Female Robb, Female Viserys, Full Shift Werewolves, Incest, M/M, Male Daenerys, Masturbation, Multi, Older Woman/Younger Man, R Plus L Equals J, Rule 63, Sexual Coercion, Sibling Incest, The Daughters of Ned Stark, Werewolves
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-30
Updated: 2018-09-09
Packaged: 2019-07-04 10:28:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15839379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trashwriter/pseuds/trashwriter
Summary: The six daughters of Lord Eddard Stark find their lives turned upside down when their father's old friend, King Robert, asks him to march south.Across the Narrow Sea, Visera Targaryen prepares to wed a Dothraki khal in hopes that she and her younger brother Daeryn can use the khal's army to return to the Seven Kingdoms and reclaim their birthright.





	1. BRANWEN

**Author's Note:**

> See end notes for glossary of terms

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am posting this thing in all haste because I need to get it out while its still in my head but also because I want to hear from you the readership about how you think the story should unfold. Please let me know about what you'd love to see happen to these revamped Stark children and any pairing suggestions would be very welcome
> 
> There's a lot of jargon that goes with this concept so please see the end notes for the glossary of terms!

The morning had dawned with clear skies and a crisp edge to the air that hinted at the end of summer. They had set forth at daybreak in deference to her father and the other wolfless men, twenty in all, who accompanied him to the High Hill. There today a man would be beheaded. 

 

Bran rode among them, sitting as tall upon her pony as she could manage, nervous and excited. This was the first time that she had been deemed old enough to accompany her lord father and her sisters to see justice done. 

 

It was the ninth year summer, a summer that had begun the year that Bran was born. But more and more often Bran could smell snow and ice the north wind carrying the tiding of encroaching ice from the far off country beyond the Wall. 

 

The man who was to die had been taken outside a small holdfast farther into the hills and brought to High Hill by outriders who said he’d been heading south. 

 

Robynne thought he was probably a wildling, his sword sworn to Mance Rayder, the sometime King-Beyond-the-Wall. It made Bran’s skin shiver to think of it. 

 

Old Nan had many tales of the wildlings. They were the worst sort of wolfless men. Cruel and greedy, thieves and cutthroats who fought each other for amusement and consorted with giants and ghouls. According to Old Nan they stole girl-children in the dead of night, and drank the blood of their enemies from polished horns. And when the winter settled in their women lay with the Others in the depths of the Long Night to sire terrible half-human children. 

 

The man they found, bound hand and foot to one of the tall stones that marked the High Hill, awaiting her lord father’s justice was barely more than a boy. He was not much older or much taller that Robynne and he’d lost an ear to frostbite. He was dressed all in black like a man of the Night’s Watch, except that his furs were rank and greasy. 

 

The smell of men and horses was thick in the air but Bran had the best nose of all her sisters, even Robynne, and she could smell the tang that spoke of the wolf that lived under his skin. And the bitter tang of wolfsbane. 

 

Her lord father had the man cut down and brought before him. Robynne and Jenny sat tall and still on their horses flanking Bran and her pony protectively. Bran tried to school herself to be just as still and impassive. Like she’d seen this all before. 

 

Her father’s long dark hair stirred in the wind. His close trimmed beard was shot through with grey making him look older than his thirty-five years. There was a grim set to his mouth today and his grey eyes were cold. He seemed not at all the same man who would gather them all together by the fire and tell them stories from the age of heroes or legends about the children of the forest. He had taken off Father’s face and donned the face of the Lord Stark of Winterfell. 

 

Overhead the banner with the grey direwolf of House Stark fluttered and snapped. 

 

There were questions asked and answers given but Bran didn’t strain herself to hear them, instead watching her father. 

 

He was the first Stark in a dozen winters to rule both the werthreat and the wolfthreat of Winterfell as a wolfless man. His siblings had all had the wolfsblood in them, and by rights her Uncle Benjen should have been the Lord of Winterfell. But he’d been given to the wolfthreat at Castle Black before his first changing and joined the Night’s Watch during Robert’s Rebellion so that he would be safe, even if the rebels lost the war. 

 

But the he oaths spoken by the wolfcarls of the Night’s Watch bound them for life and he wasn’t allowed to come back after the war was won and lead the pack at Winterfell. The werthreat and the lords of the lands sworn to House Stark mostly didn’t care that Eddard Stark was not a wolfcarl but the wolfthreats of the North had not been pleased with their new lord and his southron lady. 

 

Finally her lord father was satisfied and with a nod two guardsman dragged the ragged boy to the ironwwood stump at the top of the High Hill. They forced his head down so that his neck touched the hard black wood, polished to a high shine by wear and the blood of generations of criminals. 

 

Lord Eddard Stark dismounted and his ward, Theon Greyjoy, brought forth his sword. “Ice,” that sword was called. It’s blade was as wide as a man’s hand and as long as Bran was tall. The blade was Valyrian steel, spell-forged in ages long past and dark as smoke. Nothing was quite like Valyrian steel. The spells made it smooth and weightless and sharp enough to shear a leaf in two or slice through mail and bone like butter. 

 

Her father peeled off his gloves and handed them to Jory Cassel, the captain of the household guard, a young wolfcarl who smelt like falling leaves. He took hold of Ice with both hands and held it before him, saying in a low strong voice, “In the name of Robert of the House Baratheon, the First of his Name, King of the Andals and the Rhoynar and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms and Protector of the Realm, by the word of Eddard of the House Stark, Lord of Winterfell and Warden of the North, I do sentence you to die. If you have any final words you may speak them now."

 

The boy looked up with glazed eyes of a wolfcarl affected by wolfsbane, but his voice was high and clear as a singer’s, and he spoke his words to Robynne, “I know I should have gone back. Tried to warn them, but...I saw what I saw,” he said firmly, “I saw the dead walk, I saw the Others in the trees. People need to know.”

He let his head loll then, closing his eyes.

 

“If you can get word to my family, tell them I died easy. That I weren’t no coward.”

 

Father waited for a long moment to see if more words would be forthcoming, but the boy just leaned heavily on the stump. 

 

Bran’s bastard sister, Jenny Snow, moved closer and spoke out of the corner of her mouth, “Keep the pony well in hand. And don’t look away. They’ll know if you do.”

 

Father raised the sword above his head in one flashing silver arc, and the boy’s head parted from his shoulders. 

 

Bran kept herself and her pony still. Maybe Robynne and Jenny would always be konigenwolf over her, but she was a Stark of Winterfell. 

 

Blood soaked the snow around the ironwood stump, a red as dark and thick as summerwine. One of the horses reared and had to be restrained to keep from bolting. 

 

Bran kept her pony well in hand, and did not look away. She was not sure she could look away. Like her sisters, though, her face showed none of her distress. 

 

The head bounced off a thick root as it fell and landed at the feet of Theon Greyjoy. Theon was a lean, dark youth of ninteen who found everything amusing. He laughed, and kicked the head away towards the cart that would carry the boy’s corpse back to his family. 

 

“Ass,” said Jenny, in a low rumbling voice that was almost a snarl. 

 

She said it low enough that Robynne couldn’t hear her. Robynne and Theon were as close as siblings themselves and Robynne’s blood and temper were both hot as she approached her first change. 

 

Jenny probably didn’t want to provoke yet another fight. 

 

“You did well,” Jenny told her solemnly, squeezing her shoulder. Jenny was fifteen, like Robynne, she was almost a woman grown. She’d had her courses for a year now and like Robynne was waiting for the change to take her. Jenny was an old hand at justice. 

 

Bran was colder on the ride back to Winterfell, though the wind had died down in the shelter of the trees of the Wolfswood and the sun was higher in the sky. 

 

She rode ahead of the main column with her sisters, upwind where she could not smell the dead boy though her pony struggled to match the pace of their horses. 

“The deserter died bravely,” Robynne said. She was tall and strong and growing more beautiful everyday. She had their mother’s coloring the red-brown hair, fair skin and blue eyes of the Tully’s of Riverrun. “He found his courage at the last.”

 

“No,” Jenny Snow said quietly. “It was not courage. This one was dead of fear long before Ice took his head. You could see it in his eyes.”

 

Jenny’s eyes were a grey so dark they were almost black, and there was little she did not see. She and Robynne were of an age but they were as different as night in day in looks and temper. Jenny was slender as a willow branch where Robynne had a woman’s curves and had father’s dark curls. When they fought Jenny was graceful and quick-thinking, but Robynne was strong and fast. 

 

Robynne was not impressed by their sister’s observations, “The Other’s take his eyes,” she growled, “He died well.”

 

Bran tensed. Simple disagreements between Jenny and Robynne were liable to evolve into snarling fights nowadays and it was best to get well out of their way when that happened. 

 

Apparently though, Robynne did not want to fight because instead of flinging herself at Jenny she gathered up her reins and said, “Race you to the bridge?”

 

“Done,” Jenny said, spurring her horse forward in an instant. 

 

Robynne cursed aloud and followed. Together they galloped off down the wide trail, hair and skirts flying behind them like banners. Robynne whooped and laughed, while Jenny bent closer to her mount’s neck, silent but intent. 

 

Bran didn’t bother attempting to follow. Her pony would never be able to keep up and she needed to think anyway. 

 

She had seen the ragged boy’s eyes too, before they’d slid shut. She’d been focussed on how glazed they were from the wolfsbane, she thought of them now as Robynne’s high delighted laughter faded on the wind and the woods grew quiet again. 

 

She was so deep in thought that she hardly noticed when the rest of the party caught up and father came up to ride alongside her.

 

“Are you well, Branwen?”

 

“Yes Father,” she answered. 

 

She looked up. Dressed in furs and leathers and astride his thick-boned warhorse her lord father loomed like a giant. 

 

“What troubles you?”

 

“Robynne says that the wolfcarl died bravely,” she said slowly, not quite sure how to phrase her question, “Jenny says he was afraid.”

 

“What do you think?” 

 

Bran thought about it for another long moment, “Can someone be brave if they’re afraid?”

 

“I would say that is the only time anyone can be truly brave. Bravery I have found is never the absence of fear, it is the will to act in spite of fear,” her father told her. “Do you understand why I did it?”

 

“He was a deserter,” she said, “He ran away from his duty at the wolfheall.”

 

“That is part of it. There is no man more dangerous than an oathbreaker. He has already given himself permission to act without honor and he knows that his life is forfeit if he is caught. They do not flinch from any crime, no matter how vile. But you mistake me. The question is not why the man had to die, but why I had to kill him.”

 

Bran gave her father a look. “You command here,” she pointed out, as though he might have forgotten. 

 

“King Robert has a headsman, and he commands even me at his pleasure,” her father said, “As did the Targaryen kings before him.”

 

Bran wanted to argue that the southern kings were all wolfless men and it wasn’t at all the same thing. But her father was also a wolfless man. The lords sworn to him were often wolfless men. 

 

“Our way is an older way, the blood of the First Men still flows thickly in the veins of the Starks, and we hold to the belief that the one who passes the sentence must swing the sword. If you would take a man’s life, you owe it to him to look into his eyes and hear his final words. And if you cannot bear to do it, perhaps the man does not deserve to die.

 

“One day you might be konigenwolf, ruling a pack for your sister, or perhaps you will be wolfless and like Lady Mormont responsible for holding a keep for your king. One day justice may fall to you and though you must not take pleasure in the task neither can you flinch from it. A leader who hides behind paid executioners forgets what death is and forgets what life is worth.”

 

That was when Jenny appeared over the crest of the hill before them, she reared her horse back on it’s hind legs and made her trot two tight circles, shouting down at them. 

 

“Father, Bran!” she called, “Come quickly and see what Robynne has found!”

 

Then she wheeled around and was gone again. 

 

Jory rode up. “Trouble, my lord?”

 

“Beyond a doubt,” her lord father said, “Come, let us see what trouble my daughters have dug up.”

 

He spurred his mount into a trot and Bran and the rest followed after. 

 

They found Robynne on the riverbank, just north of the bridge, with Jenny still mounted beside her. 

 

There was no sign of Robynne’s mare and from the snow on the back of her dress it looked as though she’d been thrown. The snows this moonturn had been heavy and she was knee deep in white, her hood was thrown back and the sunlight glinted off her hair like a living flame. 

 

She was growling, a low warning noise like gravel in the back of her throat. 

 

Within the column the horses began to spook, stamping and snorting as they caught the scent of troll on the air. 

 

“Gods!” breathed Theon Greyjoy, “What is that awful stink?” 

 

Jory’s sword was already out. 

 

“Robynne, get away from it!” he had drawn, his sword but his eyes were flashing wolf-orange as he threw his reins at Theon as he jumped from his rearing horse. 

 

Robynne offered Jory a low snarl at the order. And that was when Bran saw it, lying prone under the blood-stained snow. A huge dark shape mottled grey and black with thick legs like the trunks of trees and hands the size of serving platters. The smell of rotting meat and corruption clung to it like perfume, and wide blind eyes were filled with maggots despite the cold. 

 

“It’s dead Jory.”

 

“What the hell is it?” asked Theon. 

 

“A troll,” said Robynne. 

 

“It’s a freak! Look at the size of it.” Theon said, “Trolls don’t get that big.”

 

“It’s a trellqueen,” Jenny said, “They grow larger than the other kind.”

 

And now that Bran was looking for it she could see that the rolls that she’d thought were fat were actually the creature’s bosoms, eight of them bare and deflated with long black teats. 

 

Theon said, “There’s not been a trellqueen sighted south of the Wall in over two-hundred years.”

 

“I see one now,” snapped Jenny, her eyes flashing as she lost a grip on her own temper.

 

Bran tore her eyes away from the trellqueen. She felt sick, and angry. Like Robynne and Jenny and Jory. 

 

She wanted to drive the rank smell of troll from her territory, hunt the last dregs of it back to the monster’s lair and root out the trellkits that had nursed at those breasts. 

 

Trolls were the natural enemies of direwolves, and wolfkin like the Starks. The tale went that long before Bran the Builder had raised the Wall, as a child the first of the wolfkin, then just a normal wolfless man, had been found by a wild direwolf pack and the konigenwolf had raised him as her own pup and when the man was grown and his wolf-mother had been killed by trolls he put on her skin and turned into a direwolf himself and destroyed the trellwarren and the queen that had robbed him first of his human mother and then his wolf one. 

 

Whether the story was true or not, it was universal, wolfkin had a bone deep disgust for trolls. Before the Starks had settled in Winterfell they had been nomads, hunting roving bands of trolls and protecting human villages in exchange for food and shelter from the worst of the cold. 

 

“Trolls loose in the realm after so many years,” muttered Hullen, the master of horse, “I like it not.”

 

“We should send out hunting parties,” snarled Jory, “Before the warren is established.”

 

“This trellqueen is dead Jory,” said father, “If there was a warren she would be hidden deep within it, not dead and alone in the snow.”

 

Snow crunched under his boots as he moved around the body. 

 

“Do we know what killed her?”

 

“Rot,” said Jenny succinctly. 

 

Robynne kicked the lump over so that the rest of the party could see, there was a chunk taken out of the trellhide a wide shallow scoop had taken a bit out of the troll’s shoulder the way Bran would crunch through an apple from the hothouses, and it was filled with black rot that snaked through the veins and arteries in it’s thick fleshy neck. 

 

“It’s not a wolf’s bite,” said Jory, “It’s nothing I’ve ever seen before.”

 

“Nor I,” admitted father, frowning. “It is time we returned to Winterfell.”

 

“My lord,” protested Jory and Robynne, almost in chorus. 

 

Her lord father leveled them both with a freezing glare, “This troll is dead, we need to regroup and discover if there are any yet living in our territory.”

 

Jory and Robynne both tilted their chins up and looked away from his eyes a subtle acknowledgement of her father’s authority but Bran could tell it rankled. 

 

Bran was used to Robynne being rankled by father’s commands, but Jory had always been respectful of his authority and wasn’t prone to hot-headedness.

 

Behind them though Bran could smell the fear that wafted among the wolfless men, as they muttered among themselves and the horses grew more difficult. 

 

For a wild moment Bran had the thought that father was a craven, but another deep breath told her that her father wasn’t afraid like the men-at-arms. He was worried but it was a wolfjarl’s worry for the safety of his pack, not fear for his own life.

 

“Jory, run ahead in wolf shape and send out riders to the holdfasts that tithe to Winterfell, if any are overrun better to know sooner rather than later. Robynne, take his horse. Come, before we are missed.”

 

Jory gave a low bow, unfastening his sword belt and cloak and affixing them to his saddle before loping off into the trees to undress and change. 

 

Bran hadn’t realised that she was staring off after him until father’s command caught her attention and they were moving once again. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Glossary of Terms
> 
> Wolfheall - a settlement or keep supporting a Pack  
> Wolfthreat - the collective members of a wolfheall who have the ability to shapechange into a direwolf  
> Werthreat - the collective members of a wolfheall who are fully human and cannot shapechange  
> Wolfjarl - the male “alpha wolf” in a given pack, usually the mate of the konigenwolf, usually has visible authority over the wolfheall in human shape, deals with wolfless lords and kings, most dominant male  
> Konigenwolf - the queen wolf/top bitch, the highest authority among wolves, chooses the wolfjarl, most dominant female  
> Wolfcarl - any male shapechanger  
> She-wolf - any female shapechanger who is not a konigenwolf


	2. CATELYN

Catelyn had never liked this godswood. 

 

She had been born in an early spring, a Tully, at Riverrun far to the south on the Red Fork of the Trident. Her family had walked in the light of the Seven for generations and the godswood of her girlhood home was a garden. Tall redwoods, dappled shade and the thick scent of flowers mingling with the tinkle of a trickling stream, that was what she thought a godswood should be. 

 

The gods of Winterfell, the old gods, kept a different sort of wood. Dark and primal, three acres of old growth forest that had been undisturbed for a thousand years even before the gloomy walls and towers of the castle had sprung up around it. 

 

There were no redwoods here. 

 

It smelled of moist earth and decay and the sunlight rarely reached the forest floor. Thick black trunks crowded close together while twisted branches wove a dense canopy overhead and misshapen roots wound beneath the soil.  This was a wood of stubborn sentinel trees armored in grey-green needles, of mighty oaks, and of ironwoods as old as the realm itself. It was a place of deep silence and brooding shadows, and the gods who lived here had no names.

 

In this place she still felt keenly that she was an outsider. She might have won the acceptance and even the love of the northern people but here the old gods weighed her every light tread upon the loam of their domain and found her wanting. 

 

But this was where she would find her husband. Whenever he was forced to take a man’s life he would retreat to the solitude of the godswood. 

 

Catelyn did not pretend to understand it. 

 

She was of the Faith, worship for her was a septon with a censer and voices raised in song. It was a seven sided crystal polished to a shine and filled with light. Her gods all had faces and names as familiar and beloved to her as those of her parents. The Tullys might have kept a godswood, as all the old houses did, but it was a quiet place to sew or read or simply to lie in the sun. 

 

For her sake Ned had commissioned a sept to be built in Winterfell and had lured north a septon and septa, that she might sing to the seven faces of her gods and teach their children to do the same. But the blood of the First Men still flowed thickly in the veins of the northerners and he kept the nameless, faceless gods that they had once shared with the vanished children of the forest. 

 

At the centre of the grove an ancient weirwood brooded over a small pool where the waters were black and cold and still as mirrored glass. This was the heart tree. It’s bark was white as bone and its leaves were the rusted red-brown of dried blood. Into the trunk a long solemn face with watchful eyes had been carved. 

 

Catelyn might have said that it was carved in likeness of the Starks, who were traditionally long of face and solemn of countenance, except that the stories Ned told suggested that the heart tree had been carved by the children of the forest and had worn its face for long centuries before the first Stark had set the first foundation stone of the keep. 

 

In the south the weirwoods had all been cut down and burnt out to the root long ago, except on the Isle of Faces where the greenmen kept their vigil. In the north it was different, every keep had a godswood, every godswood had a heart tree and every heart tree had its face. 

 

In the north a great many things were different.

 

Catelyn found her husband right where she’d expected him, sitting on a moss covered stone. He was cleaning the blade of the greatsword, Ice, in the black waters of the pool. He’d learned the habit, he’d told her, from his father and his father had learned it from his mother before him.  

 

She was reluctant to disturb his brooding peace but this could not wait. And he needed to hear the news from her. The weirwood’s eyes seemed to follow her as she picked her way across the forest floor, silent as a doe.

 

“Ned,” she called softly.

 

He was slow to lift his head. 

 

“Catelyn,” he said when he saw her, his hands stilling in their motions, “Where are the girls?”

 

That was always his first question. 

Her daughters were not much like her, for all that they mostly favoured her in coloring. They had too much of the Stark wildness in them. The wolfsblood. 

 

It was an open secret in the north that many of the noble houses were also wolfheallan. Halls filled with descendants of the First Men who had the spirits of direwolves, and the ability to change their shape at will. 

 

Catelyn had known little about it before the Rebellion had ended and she had made her first journey to Winterfell with the year-old Robynne in tow. In the south the term wolfheall was considered a linguistic quirk. A relic from the time when the Starks had been Kings in the North. The wolf, after all, was their symbol.

 

Not a single southerner, and certainly not her father, would ever consider that the entirety of the north was structured around these halls and the instinctive dynamics between the wolfkin. 

 

In the south, the lords and ladies ruled and were governed by the laws and whims of the king. Things were different above the swamps of the Neck. The north might have bent the knee to the dragons long ago but as far as the northerners were concerned the final authority would always be the Starks of Winterfell, in particular, the konigenwolf. The queen-wolf.

 

In the first years of their marriage the entire system had infuriated her. As a wolfless woman and and southerner she had struggled to earn the regard of her husband’s bannermen. In particular the wolfjarls and their konigenwulfin. 

 

She had expected as much though for different reasons.

 

In her youth she had had difficulties enough in Riverrun where the lords had watched her grow and knew her capabilities. For many years before her brother was born her father had trained her to manage Riverrun as his heir. It had pricked at her pride to be dismissed so quickly from the role she’d been training for since she was just a gangling girl-child simply because she was a woman but she had expected it. 

 

When she came north it had been different. 

 

Universal had been the tendency to treat her like a fragile flower in need of minding. The dismissiveness had nothing to do with her sex and everything to do with her heritage. She had understood that. Time and her own actions had dissipated the behaviour. What she hadn’t been able to parse was the reasons for the continual insubordination. The way that the representatives sent from the noble houses and members of the various wolfthreats were constantly questioning or outright defying not only herself but also Ned. 

 

She hadn’t been able to imagine that the lowerborn would dare such insouciance and Ned’s attitude towards those wolfjarls had been the subject of many an argument. She had tried to make him see that he needed to stop letting those lords challenge him. 

 

“I am not their konigenwolf, I am not even their wolfjarl. They have every right to challenge my authority and as their lord I have the duty of convincing them that I am serving their interests,” he would always say. 

 

She had not understood until Lady Mormont and Lady Umber had torn into each other in the Great Hall one evening. It had been loud and violent and it had happened so fast that Catelyn had scarcely had a chance to process the situation before it was over. 

 

Lady Mormont had stood over Lady Umber, a dark grey wolf as large as a bear and eyes a burning amber. Lady Mormont held their collective gaze and even the wolfless in the hall had felt the weight of that demand. It was the only time that Catelyn had tilted her chin up and dropped her eyes in the northern fashion without having to think of it.

 

The Greatjon had conceded all the terms to Jeor Mormont without any reservation. 

 

It was only afterwards, long after Ned had explained to her all the subtleties that she’d missed, that she finally understood. The north was held together by this system, peaceful and united, because the konigenwulfin held fast their halls and their lords, their jarls, of both the wolfthreat and the werthreat. And they ceded only to the queen of queens. The Stark konigenwolf. 

 

She was glad of it. Glad that Robynne was likely to be respected by the northmen as Ned’s heir since seventeen years of marriage and five pregnancies had brought forth only girls. 

 

But as the years passed she understood her daughters less and less. The wildness in them was alien, and sometimes upsetting. Sansa was the only one who showed not a sign of the wolfsblood. Though she held out some hope for Branwen her preternatural sense of smell made it unlikely that she would not be wolfkin. 

 

She shook her head to clear it of such thoughts. She’d not come to this place to brood on the twists and turns of her daughters’ future. 

 

“Robynne is chasing the squires and Theon around the training yard. Sansa is watching over Ryka and mediating between Bran and Arya in the solar. And do you know what my middle daughters are arguing about? The best method for killing trolls, Ned, gods be good. They’re frightening Ryka with all their talk of hunting and trellwarrens. She is only four.”

 

“She must learn to face her fears. She will not be four forever, and winter is coming.”

 

“Yes,” Catelyn agreed, as she knew she must. 

 

The words sent a chill crawling up her spine. They always did.

 

The Stark words. Every noble house had its words, family mottoes, touchstones that boasted of honor and bravery, promised loyalty and truth, or swore faith and devotion. Not the Starks. 

 

“Winter is coming,” said the Stark words. A grim reminder that times of peace and plenty would not last forever. These northerners were a strange people. 

 

“The man died well, I’ll give him that. I was glad for Branwen’s sake.” He shook his head and put down the oiled cloth he’d been using to polish Ice to a dark glow. “You would have been proud of her.”

 

“I am always proud of Bran,” said Catelyn easily. 

 

“He was the fourth this year,” Ned said grimly, “The boy was half mad, rambling about the Others until the last. Something put a fear in him. It ran deep. I could not reach him.” He sighed. “Ben writes that the strength of the Night’s Watch is down again, below a thousand, and there are more poor criminals and fewer castle-trained men each year. The pack at Castle Black numbers just fifty northbred wolfcarls and a southerner with some warging ability. It’s not just desertions. They are losing men on rangings as well.”

 

“Is it the wildlings?” she asked. 

 

“It seems likely. Though they have rooted out more trellwarrens this year as well.” Ned lifted Ice, looked down the length of it with narrowed eyes. “Experience tells me it will only grow worse if its not dealt with. I will likely have to call the banners and ride north, beyond the Wall before winter.”

 

“Beyond the Wall?”

 

Even the thought made Catelyn shudder. 

 

Ned must have seen the dread in her face because he said, “Mance Rayder is nothing for us to fear,” in his most gentle voice. 

 

“There are darker things beyond the Wall.” She glanced over his shoulder at the heart tree. At its pale bark and red eyes that watched and measured. 

 

“You listen too closely to Old Nan’s stories, my love. The Others are gone. Maester Luwin says they never existed in the first place. No man in recorded memory has ever seen one. There is not a single reputable account in the archives.”

 

Catelyn arched a brow at her husband. “I worry more about trolls and wild men who act without honor than legendary demons made of ice and hatred Ned. Until today there hadn’t been a trellqueen south of the Wall in recorded memory either.”

 

He gave her a rueful smile, “You may be right to worry about that.” He slid Ice back into its sheath and settled it across his lap and gave her his full attention. “But you did not come here to talk of future woes. I know how little you like this place? What has happened, Cat?”

 

“You know me too well.” She eased herself down beside him and took his hand. “There was a raven this morning, from King’s Landing. The news was grievous but not urgent so I thought it best to wait until you had cleansed yourself.” There was no way of softening the blow, and Ned would not expect her to so she came right out with it. “I am so sorry my love, Jon Arryn is dead.”

 

It took a moment for her meaning to sink in but when it did he took it hard. His grip ground the bones of her hand together but she held on just as tightly, offering what comfort she could.

 

In his youth Ned had fostered at the Eyrie. The then-childless Lord Arryn had taken him and his fellow fosterling, Robert Baratheon, and loved them like his own sons. In turn Jon had become a second father to Ned. When the Mad King Aerys demanded their heads the Lord of the Eyrie called his banners and rose up in revolt rather than give up those boys he loved and had sworn to protect. 

 

That war had made him a brother as well as nearly seventeen years ago they had stood side by side to wed the Tully sisters of Riverrun for duty and the support of the Riverlands in their campaign. 

 

“Jon…” he said, “How?”

 

“They say a fever took him. Even Maester Pycelle was helpless to do anything but administer milk of the poppy so that Lord Arryn did not linger in pain.”

 

“That is some small mercy, I suppose. But Jon was always hale for a man his age, to be struck down by a fever of all things.” Ned shook his head. “Is this news certain?”

 

“The letter was stamped with the king’s seal, and is in Robert’s own hand. I saved it for you.”

 

He scrubbed a hand roughly over his beard as though he could erase the traces of grief from his face. “What about your sister? And the boy?”

 

“They both have their health, gods be good,” Catelyn said, “My sister has returned to the Eyrie. I wish she had gone to Riverrun instead. The Eyrie is a lonely place for a new widow and it was never home to her the way it was to Lord Jon. She needs the comfort of friends and family around her.”

 

“Your Uncle waits in the Vale, does he not? I’d heard that Jon made him Knight of the Gate.”

 

Catelyn sighed. “Brynden will do what he can, and that is a comfort but for all that he does his best he is still a soldier before anything else.”

 

“Then perhaps you should go to her,” Ned said, “Take the younger girls at least. Sansa too, if she’s of the mind. Fill those high halls with laughter and the sound of running feet. The boy will have children of his own age and station to play with and Lysa will not be alone in her grief.” 

 

“Would that I could, my lord.” She gave her husband’s hand another squeeze, and offered a soft smile. “The letter had other tidings. The king rides for Winterfell.”

 

It took a moment for the import of those words to sink in but when they did Ned smiled. 

 

“Robert is coming here?”

 

“With the queen and all the rest of them.” Catelyn said, dry as dust. “We should send word to your brother on the Wall,” she added. 

 

“Yes,” he agreed, “Ben will want to be here.” He drew her to her feet and kissed her lightly on the mouth, practically grinning. “Damnation, how many years has it been? And he gives us no more warning than this? How many riders in his party? Did he say?”

 

Catelyn was glad he was pleased but she was not looking forward to the challenge of hosting the royal family and their attendants here in the north where things were just so different. 

 

“I should think at least a hundred knights and their attendants, half again as many freeriders and a maids and servants for Cersei and the children.”

 

“He’ll keep an easy pace for their sakes,” Ned said nodding, “Just as well. We’ll have more time to prepare.”

 

“The queen’s brothers are also in the party,” she told him cautiously. 

 

That earned her a grimace.

 

Ned had little love for the queen’s family. The Lannisters of Casterly Rock had come late to Robert’s cause. Keeping neutral through the thick of the fighting and turning cloak at the last possible moment to claim a decisive strategic victory that Robert could not ignore. 

 

He heaved a long sigh. “Well, if the price of Robert’s company is an infestation of Lannister’s, so be it. It sounds as though Robert is bringing half the court besides.”

 

“Where the king goes, the realm follows,” Catelyn quoted. 

 

“It will be good to see the children, at least. The youngest was sucking at the Lannister woman’s teat the last time I saw him. He must be what, five by now?”

 

“Prince Tommen is nine, the same age as Branwen, as well you know Ned Stark.” Catelyn gave him a reproachful look. “You must guard your tongue Ned,” she said more softly. “The Lannister woman as you call her is our queen and if the rumours are true she has more pride than grace.”

 

Ned squeezed her hand. The gesture was not as reassuring as he seemed to think. 

 

“There must be a feast, of course, with singers. And Robert will want to hunt. Gods, how are we going to feed them all? On his way already, you said? Damn the man, damn his royal hide.”

 

Ned was still smiling faintly as he led her out of the godswood with their fingers woven together, Catelyn couldn’t bring herself to ask him if he had considered the reasons why King Robert might be riding north now when he had never gone to the effort before.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wolfheall - a settlement or keep supporting a Pack  
> Wolfthreat - the collective members of a wolfheall who have the ability to shapechange into a direwolf  
> Werthreat - the collective members of a wolfheall who are fully human and cannot shapechange  
> Wolfjarl - the male “alpha wolf” in a given pack, usually the mate of the konigenwolf, usually has visible authority over the wolfheall in human shape, deals with wolfless lords and kings, most dominant male  
> Konigenwolf - the queen wolf/top bitch, the highest authority among wolves, chooses the wolfjarl, most dominant female  
> Wolfcarl - any male shapechanger  
> She-wolf - any female shapechanger who is not a konigenwolf
> 
> \------
> 
> I had a bit of trouble getting into the groove of Catelyn's POV but I decided to include this chapter without too many changes because she has such important observations being outside perspective on the oddities of the northerners. I've also changed her voice a little bit from the books, included more of her personality from the show which I think matches Ned better. 
> 
> The next chapter is Daeryn!! And its one that I'm super excited to share with all of you!!
> 
> Still looking for any input the readership has about potential scenes, plot twists, pairings, and general things you'd like to see so don't hesitate to spam the comment section with your thoughts!


End file.
